Nature - not always the gentlest

I post this with the utmost relief to be back home. I survived the Crow Road.

Monday - being quite wrong from the start - needed to be walked off. I wanted to get centered, and perspective.

So the dog and I hopped in the car and headed for the tranquillity and peace of the woods.
And we had it all to ourselves for an entrancing, luring, and pacifying full hour.

The only natural sighting of any life was a murder of crows. No less than 40 of them - cawing up a storm.
Van Gogh would've loved the scene!

Crow Road is a Scottish phrase. To 'go the way the Crow road' is to die, or be killed.

I thought, nah...it's too gorgeous a scene to be a warning. Anyway, how could they possibly signal a threat,
when there were so many of them freely congregating like that...but, I stopped all the same, and told the dog to start heading back.

The dog and I got about 10 minutes on our way back along the wide gravel path, before I heard a low guttural growl on the gravel path behind me.

BOLD !

My first reaction, I naively thought it was just a fox. (a bold fox)

But no.

It trotted to within a much closer, intimidating distance, to give me a better look at him.

It was a wolf. Not a coyote. Not a Husky or Shepard dog.

A wolf.

And it was not backing down.

Never been in this situation before.

An instant look around for ideas, direction, what to do, where to go options, and I spotted 3 more trotting along to the east of it, in the the pines.

~Oh~my~God~

Now, my dog is a goofball who thinks everyone is good and kind, and everything loves him.

Add to that situation, and my having to *casually* get him to me, without getting the wolves to come to me, get-him-on-leash, and all without stopping our now equally determined stride - though all the while genuinely visualising the pounce - hit & feel - 4 wolves shoring my dog and myself wide open would be like - sometimes a visual mind is not an advantage).

I've experienced many rattle snakes encounters growing up, but not pack wolves out for sport.

They weren't hungry. Nor were they curious. They were just out for sport, and my dog and I were *it*.

I bought some distance by doing what I didn't think I would.

I hollered "NO" in a voice I have never heard from me. Then GO, when it continued.

I know from reading....pack animal mentality does not listen to, or follow an angry leader. And I know I sounded angry. And I know I instantly gave away my pecking-order for not being truly calm, but they now were within a 90 feet and closing in, and I was and hour away from help and people, and my dog was naively wanting to play, thus keeping them on our tails

The following sonic commands of FUCK! slowed them, made them growl, but it also got my dog's focus and attention!

I needed both of those things to happen. Just as much as I needed everything the wolves were visualizing, NOT to happen. ....could've done without the intimidating low resonant growls though!! That was unnerving.

Difficult keeping that at bay, when you're visualizing the very same thing!

Despite my yells they kept on trotting, following, and growling for many a winding turn.

When I saw they were off the gravel trail and dropped back into the forest....I got worried, cause now I couldn't see them, and fully expected to have them pop up along side or in front - barring our way - to show us this is their domain, and they know it far better than I.

It's interesting the things that go through one's mind when something so inherently wild - eyes, surrounds and out numbers you.

It's so beyond any one's control.

This day was going from bad, to inconceivably worse.

By sheer luck.

Sheer unadulterated luck - the dog and I are home. Gratefully home. Safely home. Home Home Home.

All the aggravation of society I needed to walk off - I embraced all the way home.

I was given perspective I didn't think I had asked for.

One of the strange thoughts that came to me was as silly as now knowing why man build their homes in close clusters, in tight rows together....man did that waaaaay back when, for safety.
To guard against things beyond ones control. Where help might be at hand.

Despite the fright, I will continue to walk. But not for a while.

That was partially my fault. Partially the nature of the day.

But entirely a sincere case of: being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Somehow, we survived the Crow Road.

The rest of the week is welcomed. If I needed to change my perspective and look at things a new...I now do.

As I type this - the fright of the reality is still there...I need soothing civilized music...a sense of enveloped safety.

Had they decided to do what they wanted....

....we'd still be out there as you read this.

....puts everything in perspective.

...but I didn't think I needed that sharp a lesson.

Thoughts also with the earthquake victims and survivors in China.

Nature is not always the gentlest.


The above is, horrifically, no exaggeration. This evening, a pardon was granted for trespassing on Wolf territory & domain.